News in Brief

Date: 26 August 2018 - 20:40

News ID: ۵۶۶۷۴

LONDON (Reuters) -- Britain is to start work on its own satellite navigation system to rival the European Union's Galileo project because the UK's access to sensitive security information could be restricted after Brexit, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
Galileo, a 10 billion euro ($11.44 billion) satellite program being developed by the EU as a rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System, has emerged as a flashpoint between Britain and the EU, which is already beginning to treat Britain as an outsider.
Britain's finance minister Philip Hammond has approved 100 million pounds to explore a post-Brexit satellite system and an official announcement will be made this week, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
A spokeswoman for Britain's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy declined to comment.
The European Commission has started to exclude Britain and its companies from sensitive future work on Galileo ahead of the country's exit from the EU in seven months-time.

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SYDNEY (AFP) -- Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, a rare female voice in the Australian government, said Sunday she was quitting the frontbench after a failed tilt at the nation’s top job during a messy party-room coup.
The deputy chief of the Liberal Party, Bishop had put her hand up to be one of three candidates to replace former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in Friday’s leadership challenge, but received minimal support from colleagues even as opinion polls pointed to her popularity among voters.
Her departure has raised questions about whether she fell victim to party politics and a perceived glass ceiling for women in Canberra.
"I will be resigning from my cabinet position as Minister for Foreign Affairs”, Bishop said in a statement, signaling her intention to remain on the backbench.
A moderate, she reportedly garnered only 11 votes out of 85 in the leadership ballot — significantly lower than the two other rightwing challengers, coup instigator Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and Treasurer Scott Morrison.
A leaked WhatsApp chat between some Liberal members, revealed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Sunday, showed them pushing against voting for Bishop as a tactic to back Morrison, who finally emerged as the winner.

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HONOLULU (AP) -- Sirens wailed while workers piled sandbags in front of hotels and police blared warnings to tourists to leave the world-famous Waikiki Beach as Hurricane Lane barreled north after dumping nearly 2 feet of rain on Hawaii's mostly rural Big Island.
Emergency crews rescued five California tourists from a home they were renting in Hilo after a nearby gulch overflowed and it flooded Thursday.
Suzanne Demerais said a tiny waterfall and small stream flowed near the home when she first arrived with four of her friends from the Los Angeles area. But the stream turned into a torrent and the river rose rapidly over 24 hours.
Hawaii County firefighters, who were in touch with the home's owner, decided to evacuate the group before the water rose further. They floated the five out on their backs, Demerais said.

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DUBLIN (Reuters) -- It is "very, very unlikely" that Britain will crash out of the European Union next year without an exit deal with the bloc, Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Sunday.
"I have said and I continue to say that I believe a no-deal Brexit is very, very unlikely," Coveney told Irish state broadcaster RTE, when asked about the publication by the British government last week of planning for a possible no-deal Brexit.
But he also warned that Ireland would not change its own red lines on the key Brexit issue of the Irish border, saying Ireland's position "has remained consistent and firm ... and is not going to change."

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NEW DELHI (AFP) -- The death toll from devastating floods in the southern Indian state of Kerala rose to 445 Sunday with the discovery of 28 more bodies as the waters recede and a massive cleanup gathers pace, government officials said.
Around a million people are still packed into temporary relief camps and 15 are reported missing even as the government mounts an operation to clean homes and public places that have been filled with dirt and sand left by the floods.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in a tweet said that more than 130,000 flood-hit houses had been cleaned, or nearly a third of those affected.
Authorities are also in the process of restoring electricity connections.
People returning to their homes have been told to stay alert as receding waters leave behind a glut of snakes. State authorities and wildlife experts have formed teams to come to the aid of those who have found snakes in their home, according to local media.

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ROME (AFP) -- Nearly 140 migrants who had been stranded on a boat at a port in Sicily were allowed to disembark early Sunday after Ireland and Albania agreed to take some of them in.
The boat docked at Catania port Monday but Italy had refused to let those on board disembark in the absence of any EU commitment to relocate them, prompting a new bitter row with Brussels.
But following a deal brokered by the Catholic Church late on Saturday, Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini agreed to allow them to leave the Diciotti, the Italian coastguard ship which rescued them some 10 days ago.